The Journey of Death
Is Vallecito Stage Station haunted?
by Charles Spratley
You need not spend the night in a spooky Victorian house or wander through a Gothic-looking cemetery for ghostly happenings. Our Anza-Borrego desert offers bone-chilling tales that will keep you huddled in your tent or around the campfire until the rising of the sun.
After the tragedy of the Donner Party in 1846, travelers became wary of crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California and began looking for an alternate southern route. They discovered a long, desolate passage that stretched from Ft. Yuma to San Diego. Although it was free of snow, it proved to be even more deadly. It was called El Camino del Diablo (the Devil’s Highway) and travel along it was referred to as the Journey of Death.
From this route came many stories, legends and folklore, including gunfights over buried treasure, lost mines that held untold riches and murdering bandits. These tales of desperate men on the verge of starvation, dehydration and exposure to the elements almost always ended in death and visits from the Other Side—spirits who wander the desert to this day...
To read the complete article, pick up your free copy of San Diego Family Magazine.
Charles Spratley is a local historian and paranormalist, who, when not giving guided tours, spends his evenings exploring the darker side of the County’s past.